All odds are against your blog’s survival

I was pleasantly distracted by an interesting presentation from WordCamp Israel. Automattic (WordPress.com) data scientist Boris Gorelik shared his findings on blogger attrition rates compared with social engagement.

Gorelik’s research findings focused on the survival rate of wordpress.com bloggers after one year. He combed WordPress.com blogs that had at least one post and received at least one like. I highly recommend watching this video but I semi-summarized his findings below.

My interpretation of Boris’ findings:

When creating content, do “Likes” motivate bloggers to create more content or does content only motivate likes? Or both?

Authors who gave more likes had a higher probability of continuing their blog. They’re more likely to be facilitating community.

People who blogged alone only have a 6% chance of continuing on with their blog

Those who teamed up had a slightly higher 9% survival rate

Unequal or “unique” blogs, with multiple contributors, were the most likely to survive

Survival counts on being Social with your content and being social on others’ content.